


to all that ever mattered, to all i ever loved

by Cunninglinguist



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Anal Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Communication Failure, Confrontations, Coping, Crying, Declarations Of Love, Embedded Images, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, Established Relationship, Home Improvement, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani and Nicky | Nicolò di Genova are in Love, Kissing, M/M, NSFW Art, Post-Canon, Relationship Issues, Returning to Malta (The Old Guard), Running, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:54:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29883501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cunninglinguist/pseuds/Cunninglinguist
Summary: Nicky and Joe return to their home in Malta following the events in London to recover and regroup. Joe immediately throws himself into complicated home improvement projects, which Nicky is happy to assist with and support, but he can’t help but notice that his beloved is willing to do just about anything to avoid talking about Merrick (or Andy’s mortality, or Booker’s betrayal). As Nicky tries to balance giving Joe the space he needs with managing his own feelings and needs by himself, he realizes that their home isn’t the only thing they’re going to have to work together to fix.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 36
Kudos: 371
Collections: The Old Guard Big Bang





	to all that ever mattered, to all i ever loved

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution to [The Old Guard Big Bang 2021!](https://oldguardbigbang2021.tumblr.com/) Whew, it's been a journey: though it didn't start that way, this ended up being, hands-down, one of the most challenging fics I've written, as it coincided with some of the most intense, world-rocking events I've yet to experience in my personal life. But it endured the doldrums of my creativity, as well as several loose-cannon headspaces, and survived several changes to the narrative, and while it ended up being a bit different than I initially thought, I am proud of it, and hope some folks will find it enjoyable. 
> 
> Huge shoutout & endless gratitude to the wonderfully talented artist Alby, who is an absolute dream and a half - thank you for your gorgeous art, and for being so incredibly patient & kind with me as I struggled through this entire process: I appreciate the hell out of you. Shoutout to the mods for organizing this fest, I cannot wait to dive into the collection & see all of the lovely new art & fics that have been created. 
> 
> Fic title inspired by lyrics from [A Solitary Reign](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD7bxyzFbC4) by AMENRA.

“We should go with the antique, the true antique, should we not?” Joe enlarges both pictures on the screen before furiously toggling back and forth between the two. “You see?”

Nicky squints at the screen. “I see.”

“You see the difference? This one is much better. It won’t look right otherwise.”

Truth be told, Nicky can _not_ tell the difference between the two. There’s an antique French limestone on the left— _”The real deal, excavated from ruined buildings,” Joe had said, eyes shining and reverent as he first presented the website to Nicky. “This has seen centuries of foot traffic, it could even be as old as we are.”_ —and a regular, run of the mill limestone on the right, which had been washed to look aged by artisans commanding a fraction of the antique floor dealers’ prices.

He chooses to keep this to himself. “Whatever you want. I think they are both nice.”

“But the authenticity, Nicolò.” Joe fixes Nicky with bright eyes that demand not only his acquiescence, but his complete agreement. “Anything modern, even if it has been made to look aged, will clash horrendously with the rest of the house. We want to keep as much historical charm intact, rather than jarring the eye with some garish, brand new flooring. Besides, we will know it’s fake, and that will just ruin it.”

Nicky suppresses the sigh building in his chest and nods. “Hmm, I think you’re right. The antique is much better.” 

Joe smiles, and Nicky feels both vexed and vindicated by his decision not to pick this battle. Desperate for fresh air and a distinct absence of flooring, he wanders out onto the balcony as Joe taps out an inquiry, already muttering to himself about shipping costs. 

It’s only been two month since London, and one month since Joe and Nicky left Nile and Andy to their own devices in Istanbul to abscond to their home in Malta for some much needed quiet time. Their friends would be joining them in short order, and Nicky is looking forward to spending some time with them before the inevitable barrage of calls from Copley, if it hasn’t already started, but what he had really wanted from this trip had been time.

Time he could spend with Joe and only Joe. 

When Nicky had pushed open the front door to their beloved, familiar, dusty living room, he’d felt a relief so deep in his chest, down to his bones, that he could only describe it as euphoric. It had been so long since they had last been in a place that belonged solely to them, a place where they could stretch languidly into their downtime, free from the burden of their calling. A place where they could process their new lot in life, a place where they could recover and heal. 

Unfortunately, it became readily apparent to Nicky that this trip was not going to go the way that he had hoped that it would. 

Not one full day after their arrival, Nicky had unwittingly opened the gates of hell by uncorking a bottle of wine, drawing a steaming bath, and suggesting to Joe that they take a long, indulgent, early evening soak together in the master bathroom. 

“Ya rab!” Joe had gasped upon opening the door. Nicky was taken aback--that was not the exclamation he’d hoped for as he waited in the tub for Joe in all of his naked, inviting glory. But Joe hadn’t even been looking at him. Instead, his beloved’s eyes were fixed on the ceiling, every line in his forehead etching itself deeper by the second. “Are you seeing this, Nicolò?”

“I see that you are still wearing clothes.” Nicky flung a foot out of the tub, gently splashing water onto the front of Joe’s pajama pants. Joe didn’t notice, didn’t even flinch, just stared up at the cracks in the ceiling. They were hardly new, thanks to ages of poor, outdated ventilation trapping condensation in the worst places, but it had finally reached the point where the plaster was crumbling onto the floor in little pieces. 

“This is a major problem,” said Joe, as serious as if the house were on fire. “Major, major issue. We need to fix this right away.”

Nicky’s a patient man, likely to a fault, but in that moment, he’d had to actively stop his jaw from clenching. “Perhaps, but it has held for several decades. Do you think it will hold for another few hours?”

Joe’s eyes finally found Nicky’s, then, softening as he was yanked back to the present by his strings. “Of course,” he said, stripping off his shirt. “Make room, hayati.”

It had been nothing short of wonderful to feel every muscle in Joe’s stiff back uncoil against Nicky’s chest, to bury his nose in Joe’s curls, hold him in his arms, kiss the wine from his lips. The bath was the first time they had been able to truly relax in months, and Nicky found himself hoping for sex, craving the intimacy of the act. 

It had only happened once since London, in the wee hours of the morning after their flight to Istanbul. Joe had been feral in his desperation for Nicky, practically unable to speak, barely giving them enough time to get settled and cleaned up before rounding on Nicky like he meant to consume him. The past two days had been raw, the wounds still fresh and bloody for all of them, and Nicky could have wept for how grateful he was for Joe’s advances, for how strongly he desired exactly what Joe had desired. 

“You are my everything,” Joe had whispered as he laid Nicky on his side, arm wrapped around his shoulders, heaving chest pressed to his back. 

“I would burn the earth to ashes for you,” he’d sighed, fucking him slow, deep, and hard, barely pulling out, fingernails digging into the meat of his thigh. “I would break anyone, everyone, who so much as thought of doing you harm, of taking you from me.”

“And I, for you, Yusuf,” Nicky had managed to gasp. “And I, for you.”

Pleasure had bled into pain and back into pleasure to form something new, something tender in the way a wound is tender. Before long, tears ran down Nicky’s face and sweat and come slicked his thighs, the bedsheets, as his world narrowed to every point of contact between his flesh and Joe’s, the beating of his beloved’s heart anchoring him to the present, so constant that it pushed every thought of the trauma they’d suffered from his mind. 

And Joe was in it with him, ravenous, eager to forget, every bit of his intensity focused on Nicky, on the way their bodies fit together. He’d bitten down on Nicky’s neck and shoulders over and over, reopening the wounds as soon as they healed, lips tasting of blood and tears and unbridled adoration as he kissed him and fucked him through orgasm after orgasm until the imam called the masses to morning prayer.

It had been as rapturous as it had been unhinged, and Nicky could not help but to think of it then, with Joe’s body melted against his in the bathtub. He grew noticeably hard against Joe’s low back, but his beloved remained unaffected. This was not unusual for either of them, but what had stricken Nicky the most was that Joe had not addressed Nicky’s arousal once. 

As with all matters, especially matters pertaining to his relationship with Nicky, Joe is usually direct with his desire, or lack thereof, so to avoid mentioning it at all is terribly unlike him. But, they had endured unprecedented horrors in London, events from which Nicky was still reeling, so he brushed it aside, and focused on holding Joe in the twilight silence as the bath water cooled and the wine disappeared.

The following day, Joe woke before Nicky, another unusual occurrence. Upon meandering out into the driveway, Nicky discovered that their truck—bless that thing, it’s been on its last legs for years now—was gone. 

Irritation and concern flared in Nicky’s gut. There was no discernible, rational reason for it; any other time this would have been a non-issue, but things were different now: something had fractured between them in London, and the sight of the tire treads in the gravel and the distinct absence of Joe’s presence were what it took for Nicky to understand that.

Rather than dwell on this revelation and risk spiraling into the darkest recesses of his mind, he decided to do something that always helped quiet his anxiety: go for a run along the beach. 

The contents of his luggage were a bust, as he’d barely had anything on his person in London, so he’d torn apart the armoire until he found an ancient but alarmingly durable pair of bright red running shorts. He’d genuinely laughed out loud when he’d tried them on, partly because he could barely remember buying them (were they a relic from their stay here in the late eighties? Had they gone shopping drunk?), partly because he couldn’t believe that these stupid things were still here, but mosty because, while they still fit him, they were comically short, clinging to his ass and thighs like he was some kind of video vixen.

It was a shame that Joe had not been there to see their debut. 

On the beach, Nicky took a brief moment to stretch, relishing in the ocean spray that hit his face before setting out on a light jog. Within his first forty strides, Nicky’s mind was peaceful and blank. Perhaps it was all of the time that he had spent here with Joe, all of their lovely memories that brought such serenity, or perhaps it was the rhythmic strike of his shoes against the sand, or the steadiness of his inhales and exhales. Whatever it was, his concerns disappeared like the sweat on his brow, wicked into oblivion by the sea breeze. 

For a time.

Nicky was dripping sweat when he flung open the back door, legs burning, mouth parched. For a moment, he almost forgot what had compelled him to go for this run in the first place, then he saw the truck in the driveway. After guzzling two large glasses of water, he pulled on his windbreaker and headed outside. Joe had loaded the bed down with what appeared to be a small hardware store’s worth of demolition tools, drywall material, and other construction odds and ends. 

“There you are.” Joe materialized beside him, a small smile playing at his lips. His eyes went wide at the sight of Nicky’s shorts. “Oh, those are nice. Where did they come from?”

“I can’t say for certain.” Nicky arched his back a little, preening at Joe’s interest. “I think they might be too small. What do you think?”

Joe took the opportunity to palm his ass before squeezing it with a hum of approval. “They look like they’re the perfect size for you, amore.”

Nicky snorted, face heating slightly at the attention. Before he could come up with a witty comeback, Joe’s attention had returned to the contents of the truck bed. Nicky allowed himself a moment to simply observe as Joe grabbed a massive box, biceps popping through his tight grey shirt as he hauled it to the gravel with a groan. 

“What is all of this?” Nicky fit himself beside Joe to pull a bucket of sheetrock free with a wheeze. “Just for the bathroom?”

“For now,” was Joe’s ominous response.

The bathroom _was_ in desperate need of some love, and it was hardly the only thing. It’s natural that things need fixing, especially in such an old house. Sure, they’ve hired young Franco Toglia, the teenaged descendent of an old, old, old friend, to pay the property a quarterly visit in their absence, if that, but there is only so much that he can do, and neither Nicky nor Joe expect him to do much beyond ensuring that the grounds are not overrun by weeds, that the pipes still work, and sending word if anything seems amiss. 

So they hauled the materials through the house and up the stairs, and Joe got to work in the short time it took Nicky to get the both of them glasses of water. 

“Yusuf.” Nicky stood in the doorway, watching Joe furiously mix sheetrock in a large foil tray that he’d placed in the bathtub. “Are you going to do this all by yourself? Let me help you.”

“Thank you, habibi,” said Joe, already handing him a pair of goggles. He stood, poked the tip of his finger into one of the larger cracks, and winced as chunks of the surrounding ceiling disintegrated in its wake. “Looks...fucked. We might as well rip out the whole thing, hmm?”

“I suppose so, since we are already going through all this trouble.”

They got to work, patching and tearing out and remaking the ceiling until the sun glowed deep orange on the horizon. Nicky had always enjoyed working with his hands, and found this to be a nice reprieve from the anxious thoughts that had begun swirling about in his brain once more, requiring just enough focus to be meditative. 

While they were at it, Joe went as far as to add a new return to the wall, in hopes of improving the ventilation, which Nicky agreed was a good plan. Just as they finished screwing it in, Joe glowered up at it like it offended him.

“What’s wrong with it?” Nicky wiped his sweaty hands on his shorts. “I think it looks good.”

“It does.” Joe absently rubbed at his beard until chalky white crud stuck in his curls. “But it will do no good if the air flow is fucked throughout the house.”

“Hmm.”

“So we probably ought to take a look at the whole ancient HVAC system at some point, too.”

“Probably,” said Nicky, removing the bit from the drill. “But perhaps this is a project for a different day.”

After a moment, Joe turned to smile at him, like he was coming out of a fog. “Of course,” he said, gentling a hand against Nicky’s low back and giving him a dusty peck on the cheek.

That was the thing that had started it all, fixing those cracks in the ceiling. Empowered by the work they had done, Joe excitedly suggested that they follow the natural progression of things and give the bathroom a new coat of paint. Once they’d finished with that, Joe took it upon himself to fix every little imperfection he laid his eyes on--a little spackle here, a little weeding there, new window boxes out back, new sealant on the basement banister…

It was borderline obsessive from the beginning, but Nicky said nothing and continued to help Joe with his tasks. He also continued to find comfort in the work, as the headspace it created for him was not unlike that of running, and there is a certain satisfaction to be found in working on something with Joe, together. 

He was also grateful for the fatigue that kept his sleeps dreamless, devoid of the nightmares that always seemed to find him whenever he drifted away from the shores of consciousness.

Things escalated rather quickly. Joe purchased more tools, more equipment, to take on larger tasks, slowly filling his workshop until it could hold no more. Then, the tools started coming inside to occupy the free corners of their living room. 

Before long, Joe had gotten it into his head that their kitchen needed a complete overhaul. It didn’t, as they’d only just redone it fifteen years back, and Nicky said as much, wholly uninterested in involving them in the massive time suck of a full kitchen renovation for seemingly no reason. 

His protests went unheard; Nicky thinks now he should have put his foot down emphatically. But how could he have possibly predicted that Joe, this Joe, the Joe who had returned to Malta with Nicky from London, would be so overcome at the prospect of redoing an entire room that he would begin tearing cabinets off the walls and smashing the terracotta tiles out of the floor without telling Nicky first?

Nicky had been stunned to return from a long run to find Joe in a cloud of dust, holding a sledgehammer with a manic gleam in his eyes. Nicky had seen this glimmer of mania many times, but only in two contexts: when Joe was midway through a painting, fully immersed in his creative process, or when Joe was midway through a disembowelment, the tip of his scimitar’s blade buried deep in the squirming guts of someone who meant them great harm. 

“I liked our floor,” was all he could say as he stood in the doorway, helpless, suddenly bursting at the seams with a myriad of warring emotions, none of them positive. He’d chewed his lip, as though every pass of his teeth against the soft tissue would dispel the hurt clenching in his chest at the sight of the smashed tiles. “You remember, Laura Ciccetti’s grandmother made those tiles for us herself in Tuscany, Yusuf. They were not in disrepair.” 

This had sent Joe on a somewhat deranged diatribe about antique limestone which culminated with something like, “It will fit with the rest of the house better, Nicolò, as it is more elegant, more durable, and less imposing to the eye.”

“I don’t think so.”

Joe had looked at him like he was seeing him for the first time, seeing someone who did not yet know him, and that which was fractured between them strained until it gave way to a deeper crack. To Nicky’s disbelief, they had argued about the _fucking_ kitchen floor for what had seemed like days, but was in truth only a few minutes. Ultimately, he had conceded for the same reasons that he hadn’t locked Joe in a closet while quietly loading the truck with all of his newly amassed home improvement materials and driving it into the ocean: his beloved _needed_ this. This was his release. Destruction is cathartic, just like creation, and redoing the kitchen requires both in spades. 

Still, he couldn’t help but to close a hand over his heart at the sight of the destroyed terracotta in piteous, haphazard stacks in the bins the next day.

He decided to set his feelings aside in the interest of not driving an even greater wedge between them, instead offering Joe the same help and support in this as he had in the smaller projects. Since it was happening with or without him, and Joe was clearly hurting just as much as Nicky was, he might as well lean into it, get some of his own frustration out alongside the love of his life.

Though this logic had seemed flawless at the time, Nicky’s encouragement had only managed to fan the flames of Joe’s obsession. 

As the days passed, Joe drowned himself in the kitchen. He stopped coming to bed with Nicky, opting instead to stay awake into the wee hours of the night, fiddling with drawings and taking measurements, or spending hours scrolling through appliances and hardware online like he’s a contractor on a deadline, often asking Nicky to look with him until his eyes bled. 

As if it were not already difficult to get to sleep without Joe at night, Nicky also found himself frequently jolted from his uneasy slumber by Joe’s sledgehammer before the birds began to chirp. Knowing returning to bed would be an exercise in futility, Nicky would head downstairs to make coffee, a fine ritual until one day he descended wearing nothing but his underwear only be greeted by three or four great-grandchildren of people they used to know, staring at him owlishly in their dusty coveralls in his living room.

That was the morning that he learnt that Joe had hired a gaggle of locals to help him with demolition and debris. Debris which was being tracked through the entire house, despite the various tarps laid about. Nicky was beginning to notice a grey sort of sediment settling between the floorboards of the living room. 

Ah. The living room, or, as Nicky now not-so-lovingly refers to it, “the shit room”: a purgatory for all of the things that once belonged in the kitchen. It’s a purgatory for Nicky, too, every wall obstructed by stacks of boxes, every piece of furniture finagled into claustrophobic little configurations to make room for the boxes and the appliances and the tools. He doesn’t even know when this happened, or how it had become this way, but trying to piece together a timeline makes him feel more than a little insane. 

The kitchen project is all Joe can talk about, day and night: all other topics fail to hold his attention, always met with a scoff and hand wave or some equally dismissive gesture, if not ignored completely. It’s grating, and Nicky finds himself in need of leaving the room with every mention of quartz countertops or German hinges or resizing the main pantry so that he might quash the seismic flare of rage in his gut. 

It never takes long, for Nicky to calm and regain his perspective: his anger is unjustified, it must be. This is a good outlet for Joe, good for the both of them...and yet...

Surely, Joe cannot have this single thing on his mind at all times. He _must_ be thinking of all that had happened with Merrick, and Booker…

Andy…

Nicky finds that he cannot stop thinking about it, nor dreaming of it, especially not now that he no longer sleeps with Joe by his side. He runs more often, every day now, and the distances seem to stretch longer and longer, and Nicky wonders if he isn’t chasing oblivion, or resolution, or some other equally meaningless concept. 

And he is a patient man, truly, but he reaches a point where he must broach the subject of London, or he risks shattering into a thousand pieces. He’d given Joe weeks of space, weeks of indulgence in this renovation--it was enough already. 

He should have known the conversation was doomed from the start, when he’d had to all but threaten Joe to pull him from the dream world that only he could see from the kitchen floor to join him in the cramped living room for dinner. 

And by “dinner,” Nicky means the unfrozen remnants of the last truly involved recipe he’d been able to cook in the fully functional, perfectly fine, completely not-in-need-of-renovation kitchen, pasta e fagioli, heated over the hotplate and consumed at the little wooden coffee table crammed between the sofa and the armchairs that had been pushed into a corner. 

“You know,” said Nicky, ladling a second helping of soup into Joe’s empty bowl. “If there’s anything you want to talk about, you can tell me, right?”

Joe fixed soft but wary eyes on Nicky’s face, like he already knew what Nicky was going to say. “I know I can.”

“I know you know, but…” Nicky took a long, fortifying sip of his wine. “So much has changed recently. Everything that happened...you haven’t said much since Istanbul.”

Joe shifted, and Nicky could feel his hackles rising. “What is there to say?”

“I have no expectations on how the conversation might go, but I think it is important to at least address it at some point here.”

“Nicky…” Joe let out a long-suffering sigh, as though Nicky were being unreasonable. “Nicolò, I don’t want to think about that right now.”

“Neither do I, but if we keep ignoring it, I think it is going to become a bigger issue.” He swallowed, searching for the right words, unsure if he had found them, less sure if they existed, more than a little angry that the onus to produce them had been placed solely upon him. “To face something like the torture in that lab, Booker’s betrayal...the loss of Andy’s immortality. Ah. Just one of those things would be enough to break even the strongest person, but all of it together? And Nile, on top of it? A brand new being that we must protect at all costs? I just--”

Without so much as a hint of acknowledgment, Joe pushed his chair back from the table so abruptly it scraped across the wood floor, took his glass of wine off the table, and walked out of the room, leaving Nicky in stunned silence as his soup cooled, untouched. 

The crack between them split violently into a void.

Despite the enduring heartache of Joe’s rejection, Nicky tried again a few days later. He was dismayed to find that the reaction was the same, and just as shocking as the first time that it happened. 

In the long years that Nicky has known Joe, there have always been times where they had needed their space from each other, or wanted to process things in their own way. Many of those times were hard for them to communicate or understand, especially at first. But this is not like those times--it is unprecedented in too many ways. Joe has never shut down like this, to the point where he refuses to speak of or even acknowledge his feelings, let alone ignore Nicky when he is reaching out about a shared trauma. 

When they lost Quynh, Joe was inconsolable, just as Nicky was. Their hearts bled openly alongside Andy’s as they fought tooth and nail to find their fallen sister. At night, when Andy was out of earshot, Joe would talk to Nicky in hushed tones of his sorrow, his difficulty in accepting what was becoming readily apparent, that Quynh was lost beyond their reach. He constantly told Nicky how grateful he was for him, how much he loved him, how he would tear the universe apart to find him, pull the planets out of the sky to keep them together. 

Nicky wouldn’t relive those awful days for anything in the world, but he finds himself yearning for Joe as he had been then. There had been catharsis there, comfort and reassurance in their shared heartbreak, two crumbling walls leaning against one another for support. Their capture in London had been as frighteningly close as Nicky would care to come to eternal captivity, eternal separation from Joe, who is not only his beloved, his partner, his soulmate, but _part_ of him. The most important part, he’d argue, and to endure the heft of these memories, the raw weight of their trauma on his own, is to endure them with half a soul. 

He stares out at the sea now, letting the early evening air nip at his skin, tousle the hair at the base of his skull. The waves provide a momentary respite from his thoughts, from the heartbreak he’s worked hard to hide from Joe. He stares until the sky begins to bleed from orangey-pinks into indigos, and his stomach rumbles for the first time that day. 

Inside, Joe’s hunched over the desk, furiously scribbling in his sketchpad. Nicky walks over, lays a hand on his shoulder--it’s a to-scale representation of the kitchen, depicting new cabinets, new countertops, new appliances. He’s even fashioned a legend at the top of the page, equating the distance between lines to one foot. Nicky smiles at that, ever affected by the care his beloved puts into all things.

“I’m going to drive into town.” He brushes Joe’s shoulder to get his attention. “Get us something to eat.”

“Shit, it’s dinner time already?” Joe looks up, a thousand lamentations over leaving his work now, just when he’s hitting his stride, parading across his face. Nicky hopes his slight smile masks his disappointment as he mentally resigns himself to another night of eating alone. “Don’t worry, I’ll get some food from the market you like. Perhaps Mrs Ciccetti still has some pasta. Maybe those tortelloni you like.”

“I am sorry, hayati. I lost track of time, I…” Joe looks down at his hands, silvered with graphite, the pencil between his fingers nearing little more than a nub. 

Nicky opens the desk drawer and fishes out a new pencil. 

Joe accepts it with a small nod. “Thank you.” 

Something cold constricts in Nicky’s chest, so he heads downstairs without another word. He pauses at the coat rack and closes his eyes. He lays his hands on his jacket for a moment, letting the waxed fabric beneath his fingers ground him briefly, before exhaling in a whoosh and making his way out to the driveway. 

“Nicolò, wait!” 

Nicky’s head whirls around so quickly he thinks he’s given himself whiplash, but it’s worth it for the endearing sight of his beloved standing in the doorway, one arm keeping the door half-open as he clumsily shoves his feet into his boots without tying the laces.

A spark lights in Nicky’s heart as he starts the engine. Joe hops in, face flushed from the short run down the gravelly driveway, grins at Nicky, and slams the door shut behind him. 

They forego a cobbled together supermarket meal for one of their favorite restaurants, a longtime establishment specializing in Maghrebin cuisine that they have not yet visited during this stay. It’s one of those places that feels _right,_ homey, and Nicky feels some of the tension he’s become accustomed to holding slowly leave his body as they order what could be considered a frankly absurd amount of food, even by their standards. 

“So, I spoke to Cyrus yesterday,” says Joe, leaning across the table to prod at their chicken. 

“Cyrus?” Nicky holds the plate steady as Joe gently tears meat free with his fingers. “Am I supposed to know who this is?”

“The guy at the demolition site.” Joe gives him a look, gesturing pointedly with a drumstick. “You know, that old house on the edge of town? The one that’s been abandoned for the better part of the century?”

“Ah.” Nicky takes a long sip of wine, already feeling that irrational displeasure worming its way into his gut. 

“He’d managed to salvage a fair bit of walnut from the floors and cabinetry.” Joe grins. “He’s going to sell it to me so I can turn them into new cabinets. For our new kitchen.”

“That is a lofty undertaking,” says Nicky. “Time consuming. Expensive.”

Joe chuckles and shakes his head. “What do we have in excess, if not time and money, ya Nicolò?”

Not necessarily, Nicky thinks, but he keeps the thought to himself and concedes. “True. I will help you, then.”

“I was hoping you would,” says Joe, eyes flickering down to Nicky’s mouth. Hmm. Interesting. “You are far more adept with woodworking than I.”

“Ha.” Nicky deliberately licks sauce from his finger--not something he keeps in his usual repertoire of table manners, but to see Joe shift in his seat is worth it. “I don’t know about that, it’s been a long while.”

Joe pours the balance of the wine bottle into both of their glasses. “I am not so old that I forget the work you were commissioned to do in the early days. The carpentry you did kept us clothed and sheltered for years..”

“Ah. Yes, well, this was only nine hundred years ago, of course those skills are still sharp in my mind.”

“What about the shelving in the Dubai house? This was not so long ago.”

“Alright, fair enough.” Nicky’s lips quirk upward. “I just don’t think you should get your hopes up, in case my shoddy, rusty woodworking skills let you down.”

“Oh, Nicolò.” Joe reaches across the table and covers Nicky’s hand with his own. Nicky looks up, heart pounding, and stares into molten eyes brimming with promises.”You never let me down.”

Nicky’s mouth forms a tight line. There is so much he wants to say, but then Joe presses his lips to Nicky’s knuckles, and it all flies out the window. Physical contact is slightly more common to come by these days than conversations about non-kitchen related issues, but a kiss on the hand has Nicky about ready to combust. And Joe’s finally looking at him the way he’s been wanting him to since they first arrived here, so Nicky’s not about to let this moment slip through his fingers. 

_”Joe.”_ Nicky lets his excitement darken his eyes as he gazes across the table at his beloved, nearly vibrating out of his skin at the thought of being touched, being kissed, being had. 

“We’ll take the ghoriba to go, then?” Joe murmurs against his skin.

When they return home, they barely make it through the front door before Joe’s mouth is on Nicky’s. Within minutes, Joe has Nicky bent over the sofa, legs spread as wide as the jeans around his ankles will allow, to take him from behind. Joe hasn’t even bothered removing his shirt or kicking off his boots, and the urgency in this oversight is reflected between Nicky’s thighs. 

At the first breach of long fingers, Nicky nearly sobs at the relief of being this physically close to Joe, basking in the familiarity of his touch. Nicky’s body opens easily, and before long Joe inside of him, hot and hard and lovely, and God, Nicky has missed this, so, so much. The stretch is wonderful, everything Nicky wants, and he meets Joe’s every thrust with unbridled enthusiasm. 

But, as he’s pushing back against his beloved, fingers white-knuckling the upholstery, he becomes acutely aware that there’s something missing in this--a disconnect so tangible it could be a third person in the room, watching them. 

Nicky tries to banish the thought, to lose himself in the feeling of Joe, ground himself in the tight grip of hands on his hips, but it lingers. He turns his head to look at Joe, desperate for the instant connection of meeting his beloved’s heated gaze.

Instead, he is met with Joe’s blank face, glassy eyes transfixed on the wall in front of them, staring at nothing, a million miles away, a million worlds apart.

The tidal wave of hurt that rolls through Nicky all but extinguishes the fire between his legs. 

But Nicky is nothing if not persistent. Digging deep, he arches his back.

“Joe,” he sighs, hoping to draw Joe’s gorgeous dark eyes to him, reconnect him to the present. Unfortunately, this does nothing, so Nicky sets his jaw and tries it again. 

_”Joe”_ Nicky shifts his hips, moaning at the change in angle. “It’s so good, Joe, so fucking good.”

At that, Joe’s lips part around a vocal breath, and Nicky’s heart leaps in his chest for the barest of moments before Joe squeezes his eyes shut. 

Now thoroughly disabused of the notion that this is anything beyond a physical release, Nicky lowers his chest until he can rest his cheek on the fabric. Despair settles in his gut like an anchor as he stares at the cracks in the mortar between the stones in the hearth, disappearing into the cold labyrinth of his head as Joe fucks him from the confines of his own mind. 

It’s not until Joe plants several kisses between Nicky’s shoulder blades that Nicky realizes that Joe has finished. Before he can push himself up, a warm hand reaches around to grab at him. Joe hums in surprise when he finds Nicky soft and dry. “Ya habibi...you didn’t come?”

“It’s alright. You know as well as I do that sometimes this happens.” Nicky props himself up on his elbows to look Joe in the face. His expression twists, confused, like he’s trying to remember the last time their sex had not culminated in mutual pleasure. 

Nicky can’t remember it, either. 

Joe frowns, caressing Nicky’s bicep. “It was no good?”

“It felt very good.” Nicky’s lips twist into something that he hopes resembles a smile. “But...you were far away from me.”

_The way you have been since London._

Something clicks for Joe then, and Nicky can read the realization and regret as they wash over his face as clearly as if they were written in Joe’s own hand. 

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, pressing his chest to Nicky’s back as he leans in for a kiss. “I must have...gotten lost in my own head. I know I’ve...I know...I’m sorry. What can I do to make it up to you? My mouth? My hands? Anything you like.”

“You can talk to me,” says Nicky. “About London.”

“Ah.” Another slew of expressions that Nicky knows so well he can almost _hear_ them make their way across Joe’s face before he settles on a sad little smile. “Later. I am tired.”

“Please.” Nicky takes Joe’s wrist, brings it to his lips. “I don’t want to go another moment without knowing your troubles.”

“This could take some time, Nicolò.” Joe’s smile weakens. “And I’m still inside of you. We should clean up.”

“Please.” 

Joe’s face shutters, abruptly ending the conversation, and it feels more impactful, more painful, than a slap. He presses another kiss to Nicky’s shoulder, but doesn’t meet his eyes. “We will speak later. I promise.”

Nicky’s vision blurs around the edges. He wants to scream. He wants to break something, take a sledgehammer to the kitchen, maybe burn the whole fucking house down.

Instead, he stares at the wall of cardboard before him, their boxed-up life, as Joe gently pulls out, leaving him bereft of far more than his body. 

Nicky doesn’t join Joe in the shower, opting instead to rinse himself off in the sink before climbing into bed. Despite Joe’s feigned fatigue, he doesn’t come to bed after, just fetches his sketch pad and measuring tape from their desk before kissing Nicky on the cheek with a mumbled, “Good night, ya amar.” 

Nicky says nothing. Joe’s absence is a void, dark and yawning in the bed beside him as he stares at the ceiling and thinks of France, of London.

The tell tale clatter and hiss of canisters, explosives, gas. There’s so much chaos, yelling, then a big boom--the nauseating splatter of entrails against the wall. Nicky was already on his feet, finger on the trigger, but he hadn’t been quick enough. He couldn’t stop them.

Just as he couldn’t stop the morbid kaleidoscope of his memories from shifting to Joe’s blood-spattered body, lying motionless on the floor, disappearing in a strange mist as Nicky’s head grows light, vision tunneling as he sinks into nowhere, nothing.

God, and the way Joe’s eyes had shone in the armored van, the sincerity in his eyes and his voice as he rattled off the flowery, maudlin love profusion that Nicky will never tire of hearing, not in another 900 years. They’d been in survival mode then, but Joe had still reassured Nicky, still loved him fully, without reservation. Despite the ties that bound them, they’d moved in tandem, two cogs in a machine, eradicating the guards that had captured them, Joe’s blood thumping in Nicky’s veins as they systematically cleared the van. Nicky feels the adrenaline coursing through his veins as though it had just happened, that brief moment of light, of hope, before what happened after. 

What happened after…

They’d been taken before, of course, but not in a long time, and never like this. Never by someone with resources like Merrick, with insatiable greed like Merrick. 

It wasn’t the pain that Nicky had feared as they strapped him to that sterile medical bed. Pain is manageable, predictable, and Nicky has lived far too long to be without the skills one needs to remove pain as a factor. What Nicky had feared as Kozak approached him with scalpels, pliers, needles increasing in size, had been time time.

Time spent listening to the sickening wet sounds preceding each of Joe’s pained gasps and grunts. Time spent apart from Joe, uncertain of how far their separation could reach. 

As deep as the ocean, as vast and hopeless as 500 years? 

How he’d understood Andy’s distress, her loss, her suffering as he’d laid there, mere yards from his beloved, yet impotent. He had not allowed gloom to eclipse him, no, as bleak as it got, he’d had enduring faith that they would overcome these adversaries, but it was the closest he’d come in as long as he could remember.

And then, the sight of Booker, the revelation of his betrayal that had lit a fire within Joe, within them all---

The sight of Andy--

Nicky squeezes his eyes shut. They had prevailed, survived, but that survival had come at such a cost, Nicky wonders if it’s possible to recover.

His churning mind ensures that sleep eludes him, and before long, the grey of early morning is sucking the black from the sky, casting an eerie glow upon the bedroom ceiling. Joe’s side of the bed is still cold and empty, so Nicky kicks off the covers and heads downstairs. He makes an unnecessary racket with the plastic tarps hanging in the kitchen doorway. Joe’s on his hands and knees on the filthy floor, hunched over his drawings, and he startles like a deer in headlights at Nicky's noisy entrance. 

“Ya Allah, Nicolò,” he says, a hand resting over his heart. “I almost pissed myself.”

“What are you doing down here the whole night?” Nicky’s not scowling, but he makes no effort to mask his feelings in his voice. “What is so important that it keeps you awake?”

“Oh.” Joe looks out the window, surprised to see the daylight. “I got distracted.”

“Distracted by what, exactly?”

“I thought…hmm.” Joe tears his gaze from the outside and gestures, sudden and wild like he’s seen God, to an open space between the door and the air duct. “What if we put the pantry here? It would free up so much space, and be better for the design of the new cabinets.”

Nicky looks at him for a long moment. This artistic mania would usually be exciting, or at least endearing, but right now all he wants to do is throttle the man before him until he talks to him. Instead, he pinches the bridge of his nose, regretting ever getting out of bed. “That...sounds fine, Joe. Whatever you think.”

Joe grabs him gently by the forearm, crestfallen. “I need your opinion, light of my eyes. I’m not going to do something you don’t like. If you think it would be better back where it was, for whatever reason, I will rework this plan. I want you to be happy here.“

Nicky sighs all of his agitation out in one breath, making room for the fatigue that’s been slowly settling over him, down into his bones. He’s not immune to that look, and he supposes he is glad that Joe is feeling passionate about _something._

He stands beside Joe, grimacing at the dust he kicks up with his slippers before studying the space beside the door. “It could work, now that you mention it. I am not sure why we kept it over there for so long.” He reaches out and takes the drawing from Joe, heart clenching at the level of detail he’s put into it. “Wow. This looks amazing, I never would have thought to add more cabinets there. And this little built in wine rack? A perfect touch. You have really maximized the space here.”

“Exactly. Ah, I’m so glad you like it.” Joe brightens considerably, and Nicky gives him a feeble smile. He almost forgets to be upset. 

Later that day, Joe takes the truck out to pick up the reclaimed wood. Nicky would have offered to join him, had he not fallen asleep on the sofa in their living room. It is too silent inside without Joe, even his breathing is a comfort to Nicky, despite the way things have been between them. He changes into his shorts and hits the beach for a long run. As the fresh air and endorphins scrub his mind clean, Nicky’s heart swells. How he loves this beach, this place, their home here, this wonderfully secluded haven that they built from nothing, the place where they’ve sought refuge and solace for almost 300 years now. It’s humble but sturdy, and it’s weathered many storms, withstood the steady, unforgiving crush of time, yet somehow, it’s always come out the other side. It’s endured, no matter how marred it may have become in the process.

Just as he and Joe would endure, no matter how unprecedented the challenge, how high the hurdle. 

Joe’s in his workshop when Nicky gets home, radio blasting, tarp laid on the floor, slats and slabs of wood piled against the wall. 

“Nicolò,” he says, smiling at Nicky, Huge goggles rest upon on his head, just barely restraining his wild curls, and he looks so cute and _nerdy_ that Nicky can’t help but return the smile. “I see you’re awake.”

“And I see you have wood.” Nicky crosses his arms and leaning against the wall.

Joe chuckles and shakes his head. “Well, you know I love seeing you in those tiny little running shorts,” he says, grabbing his crotch suggestively. Nicky raises an eyebrow and crosses the room, hoping to perhaps find out just how much Joe loves his shorts. But Joe slides his goggles on and turns his attention to the reclaimed wood. He grunts a little as he heaves a particularly long, awkward slat onto the counter. “Come here, take a look.”

Nicky bites back a disappointed sigh to run his hands over the piece on the counter. It’s lovely, dark and relatively smooth, with complexities to its color and grain. “Very nice. This will complement the antique limestone beautifully.”

Joe beams. “That’s exactly what I thought. Cyrus only had a little bit of this left, so I told him to give me all of it. I figure if there’s any left over we can use it for something else. A new unit for the TV or...something.”

“Absolutely.” Nicky catches Joe’s eyes. Maybe seeing Joe so excited about this can be enough for him, at least a little bit longer. “Where do we start?”

Joe hands Nicky another pair of goggles, grinning like the sun. “Come help me with this jigsaw.”

They work until the moon hangs high in the sky, the silence between them comfortable and companionable in the ritual of the work. It’s nice to feel so in sync with Joe as they work, especially after the night before, and by the time they’re hanging their goggles up, they’ve got two carcasses and an almost finished pair of cabinet doors to show for it. 

“It’s late,” says Nicky, stomach rumbling. “We haven’t eaten.”

“There is some of that soup from Mrs. Ciccetti in the fridge.” Joe takes Nicky’s hand and presses a kiss to it, wrinkling his nose at the dust in his mustache. “I will heat it up for you.”

“What a gentleman,” says Nicky, warmth flooding him as the skin around Joe’s eyes crinkles up. 

Maybe this can be enough, for now.

The cabinets occupy them for several days that blend into nights of shared meals, laughter, and just a bit of communication. Joe makes an effort to come to bed with Nicky, just to sleep, but there are no words any of the languages Nicky knows, nor in those that he has forgotten, that could possibly do the comfort he feels in Joe’s arms at night any sort of justice. He sleeps soundly, though Joe is often the first to rise, still, already well into work by the time Nicky is brewing coffee. 

The chasm between them seems to stop growing during these several blissful days. It certainly yawns less, and Nicky almost feels like everything could be back to normal when Joe corners him as he’s sanding down a door, eyes ablaze, first kissing the breath from Nicky’s lips, then falling to his knees to suck him until he nearly blacks out. 

Nicky is only too happy to return the favor.

But, like all things built on half-truths, it doesn’t last. 

Nicky wakes with the sun one morning, happily surprised to find Joe snoring beside him, dark hair curling around his head like a halo. He gives his forehead a kiss, and there’s something in his chest, a tightness, the same anxiety that has followed him since London. He sighs, slips out of bed, and runs along the coast until he feels like his lungs could burst. 

When he returns home, Joe and the truck are gone, and there’s a barely legible note on the coffee table - _Had to go into town. Back soon. X_

Ah. The antique limestone must have arrived. Nicky can’t say he’ll miss walking across the creaky, flimsy floor in the kitchen. Though they can get a passable job done, neither Joe nor Nicky have ever been particularly adept at tiling, so Joe had been all too happy to volunteer to head into town to commission a professional. The great great grandson of a friend, of course, though Nicky can’t remember his name.

Nicky makes himself a cup of coffee and checks their email. Nile has written that she and Andy are looking forward to seeing them next week, and Nicky grins at the message before he fully processes what it’s said. Next week, already? He’d lost track of time and had completely forgotten that they would be arriving to stay. 

After firing off a quick response, he returns to the living room, surveying the oppressive disarray of their home. It’s temporary, yes, but inescapable, and completely unacceptable for Andy and Nile’s prolonged stay.

He pours himself a glass of water and meanders through the labyrinthine stacks of boxes that nearly eclipse their furniture. Have they grown in numbers since the day before? He runs a hand over the smooth surfaces, realizing with no small irritation that he has no idea what’s actually contained in these precariously stacked boxes. Sure, they’ve amassed their fair share of appliances and dinnerware, but enough to take up half of the living room?

He opens the flap on one box, peering in to see stacks of dishes. Another, the daily silverware. Standard. As he halfheartedly picks and peeks through the boxes, memories slowly move into the forefront of his mind, of everything they’d ever kept in this house. Any meaningful material thing within the last three hundred years has found a home here, from commissioned paintings by artists long since dead, to memorabilia from countries whose borders had been blurred, erased, or rearranged too many times to count, to the precious few enduring gifts from their friends and family—

Like the antique silverware set that Booker had given them. 

It had been a housewarming gift, something Andy had helped him pick out, or more likely salvage, before his first stay with them. Nicky doesn’t think he and Joe had ever actually used the silverware, but each time he looked at them, he was reminded of those joyful weeks, or months, or years, of having Andy and Booker in their home, sharing their space with their family. He’d have those memories without the silver, of course, but now that he’s thinking of it, it deserves to be prominently displayed, shown off. Perhaps in a glass cabinet; alongside what remains of their three most recent sets of wedding china. 

Nicky’s heart swells a bit at the thought of showing the silverware to Joe. Perhaps the sight of it, the weight in his hand would inspire fond memories, which would in turn inspire their woefully overdue conversation. 

The warmth in his chest coils into something tight and cold that sinks into his stomach. He closes his eyes, only to be greeted immediately by visions of Booker’s silhouette shrinking in the distance on the beach, the ghosts of Andy’s sharp, pained inhalationa as Joe had bandaged her wounds in the Istanbul safe house. 

Nicky’s pulse spikes as he tears through cardboard flaps. He _has_ to find them now. His feverish mind slingshots back to the day they’d finally found Booker. It had taken months of dreaming, sketching, difficult paths traversed on both horseback and foot, and when they finally found him, Nicky would have thought him to be dead, had he been unaware of Booker’s condition, for he was little more than a wasted skeleton in filthy tattered clothes, a grotesque marionette dangling from a barren tree. 

He hadn’t had the energy to fight as Joe cut him down from the gnarled tree. He hadn’t protested as Andy and Nicky helped him into the front of Joe’s saddle, just slumped against him and parted ghoulish, cracked lips gratefully for Joe's waterskin. At the time, Nicky had thought this lack of fight, lack of questions was to do with his state as a man left for dead who had just discovered that he cannot die. 

Now, in spite of all that they had been through in the two centuries they’d spent together, he wonders if Booker had ever had much, if any, fight within him. 

How long had he waited for the opportunity to turn on them, his family, the people who had pulled him down from that hellish hangman’s tree and nursed him back to health?

Nicky’s breaths are short and staccato, barely able to keep pace with his heart as his palms grow slick with sweat and his blind search efforts turn careless. Booker had lost his first family, his true family, in the worst way, he had watched them wither and die like flowers in a vase. While Nicky can’t ever hope to truly understand that loss, nor can he understand the drive to destroy the only people around you. People who had only ever cared for him, treated him as one of their own until he had become that very thing, a part of them. A dear friend, a brother--

A brother who had aided in their capture, who had seen to their torture. A brother who had, in some way, manifested the reality of Andy’s mortality. 

Nicky wrenches a well-nestled box free with shaking hands and undue force, causing a small avalanche. He gasps, heart nearly stopping in his chest as he lunges to the side in a desperate attempt to save any potentially shatterable items, only to lose his balance. 

He falls, hard, onto his hands and knees. For a moment, the only thing he hears is his own blood rushing in his ears as the walls close in around him. 

He doesn’t give his heart rate the opportunity to return to normal before he’s plunging himself back into the sea of boxes, mindlessly tearing open flap after flap, yanking out the contents that will come out easily, upturning boxes with more stubborn items. In the back of his mind, he knows he’s being absurd, he’s not acting rationally, but he can’t stop until the silverware is recovered and safely in his hands. If he can just find it, just show it to Joe,everything will be okay, he thinks to himself, over and over, an inane mantra as he tears apart everything that had been so carefully packed away, turning the living room into a nightmarish display. 

Nothing that can’t be fixed, of course. Nothing that isn’t worth it. One he finds the silverware, shows it to Joe, Joe will understand, and everything will be--

Nicky inhales sharply, and for a split second that could be several hours, his mind quiets. In his hands, his sweating, shaking hands, he’s holding the battered, worn mahogany box that had held Booker’s silverware. 

Now, it feels light and hollow, and Nicky knows that it will be empty before he opens it. Red seeps into his vision as he confirms his suspicion, letting the lid fall back on its rusted hinge. The matted deep blue velvet lining is moth-eaten, has been for years, possibly centuries, but the ghostly outlines of the gift that had once been housed within endure, slightly lighter in color. 

Things have always been ephemeral to Nicky in this long life, fading like everything does with time. But gifts from friends, and from family...those are different. Joe _knows_ this, he knows this is important, and yet…

Nicky holds an empty box.

Had Joe sold them? Had he dumped them into the garbage, discarded just as their terracotta tiles had been? Had Joe looked at it like some sort of exorcism, a way to burn out any physical reminder of Booker, making it even more difficult to bridge the ever growing, yawning divide between them?

A furious growl grows in Nicky’s throat. He gets to his feet, nearly tripping over the items he’d just scattered across the floor. In a rage, he kicks everything out of the way - if Joe does not care for the things they had collected in their long life together, why should Nicky?

The faint sound of music pulses through the walls. Nicky inhales through his nose with great effort, then breathes it out to the count of four. Joe must have come home and gone straight into the workshop. 

Clutching the box in both hands, Nicky storms through the ocean of debris on the floor, through the living room, out the back door, across the patio, and into Joe’s workshop. 

“Yusuf!”

Classic rock booms as Joe happily sands away at what looks like the middle stage of a lower cabinet drawer, goggles on, sawdust in his wild hair, oblivious to the wall of fury that Nicky is about to pull down on top of him. 

Nicky slaps the off button on the radio and bellows, “Yusuf!”

Joe startles as he looks up, mouth open, hurriedly setting the sandpaper down. “Nicky. What’s the matter?”

By way of response, Nicky marches over to his workspace and slams the box down in front of him with such force that it flies open and skitters across the countertop. Joe furrows his brow, confused, which only serves to fan the flames quickly rising in Nicky’s gut.

“Do not look so confused,” he snarls. “You are the one who packed this empty box away, you are the one who knows exactly where the silverware is, are you not?”

“Oh, Nicky,” says Joe, looking up at him with big eyes that are only accentuated by the goggles he is wearing. “I know these are meaningful to you, but I--”

“‘Meaningful’ to me?” Nicky throws his hands up. “These are gifts from family, Yusuf, gifts we worked hard to keep safe, keep hidden, so that we may cherish them as long as they last.”

Joe’s expression turns stormy. He pulls the goggles onto his head, wipes the sweat from his eyes, his brow, with a long-suffering sigh. “What exactly do you think I’ve done with them? Hmm?”

“I don’t know, Yusuf, perhaps you’ve sold them. Perhaps you’ve thrown them away like they’re nothing, just as you did with the Ciccetti’s tile!” Ire blazes through Nicky so rapidly it nearly blinds him. “I care for next to nothing, you know this, yet you seem hell-bent on destroying and erasing those precious few material things I hold dear!”

Joe lets out an incredulous, mirthless laugh before inhaling sharply like he’s going to speak, but Nicky continues, “You are so blind, in your determination to avoid acknowledging all that we experienced, all the ways in which our world has changed, that you cannot see how you are pushing me away.” 

Joe’s mouth snaps shut. Nicky gestures wildly, head spinning like he’s wandered the desert without food or water for far too long. “You won’t speak to me, you won’t come to bed with me, you won’t even touch me, not really, not like you used to, and now you burn out the only things I care about. The only thing we have from Booker. And not only that—” He meets Joe’s gaze, relishing in the mirrored anger he sees there. _Good._ “The only thing we have from Andy. _Andy,_ who’s going to die.”

Joe lets out a furious noise, a battle cry, a sound that expresses everything Nicky has felt since they left that horrible place in London. “And what do you want me to do about that, Nicolò? Shall I perform some sort of ancient ritual, sacrifice a goat to a dead god, in the hopes of restoring Andy’s immortality? No, no, better yet, in the hopes of turning back time? Of erasing everything that happened? Is that something you think I can do?”

Nicky scoffs, derisive. “Nothing so dramatic as that, but I’d settle for at least being consulted before you make irreversible decisions to destroy things that you _know_ I care about.”

“Ah yes, that’s me, Yusuf, destroyer and corrupter of all things precious!” Joe tears the goggles from his head and throws them to the ground. “Here I am, thinking I’m renovating our home, giving you something new and beautiful, giving us a fresh start, but no, I am only destroying and corrupting--”

“Don’t be so fucking ridiculous!” Nicky’s yelling now, matching Joe’s tone. “This hasn’t been about giving _me_ anything, it’s been an excuse for you to avoid everything, to avoid talking to me, to avoid processing the horrors we experienced in London--”

“You would begrudge me this outlet? You would ask me not to find comfort in this way? You would--”

“I begrudge you your silence!” Nicky slams his fists into the counter so hard it shakes. “Do you think you are the only one who was hurt? Do you think you are the only one who suffers?”

“How can you ask me this?”

“How can _you_ not know?!” Nicky’s frustration peaks as he runs trembling hands through sweaty hair.

How had they gotten here? 

Centuries had passed since Nicky had felt that Joe didn’t understand him, and the realization dampens the anger like rain, and his heart feels suffocated, suddenly, trapped in impermeable soil, strangled.

“I’m leaving.” 

The words are out of Nicky’s mouth faster than he thought possible, hanging in the stunned silence between them like the echoing crack of a slap to the face. He hadn’t meant to say it, he supposes, but now that it’s out, it makes sense. And it feels good, in the way that picking a scab feels good. He says it again. “I’m leaving, Joe. You clearly need space from me, and I can no longer bear to be here with you if you refuse to speak to me.”

He turns to go, reeling from what he’s just said, thinking of calling Andy and Nile. 

“Nicolò, stop!” Joe grabs his arm, a little rough, forcing him to turn towards him. 

“Let go!” The fire of Nicky’s rage that had ebbed returns in full force, and he shoves Joe so hard that he stumbles back.

“Khalas!” Joe grabs Nicky’s shoulders, and for the tiniest sliver of a second, Nicky wants to strike him, make Joe fight him, the way they used to. For a sliver of a second, he relishes in the possibility of it, the possibility of surrendering to the unambiguous justice of a physical fight.

Then he looks into the big, gorgeous eyes burning into his own, deep pools that reflect all of Nicky’s melancholy, all of his outrage. “Stay, Nicky. Please. You must stay with me.”

“What would be the point? I can’t go on pretending everything is alright, that we are in this happy bubble fixing our kitchen and nothing has changed.” He shakes his head. “Why won’t you talk to me? Why can’t you give me even ten minutes, so we can talk about the lab, or Booker, or--”

“Because every time I think about London, or Booker, or that _fucking_ lab, I am reminded of how easily we could have been parted!” Joe shouts, fingertips digging into Nicky’s biceps. “It is not that I cannot bear to think of Booker and his betrayal, although it hurts me still, and deeply, but it is that...I cannot bear the thought of how close we came to meeting a fate worse than death, worse than torture, worse than anything I can imagine! I recall the sight of you in chains, the sight of you lying unconscious on the floor of that van, you tied to a medical table, so close to me, crying out as you were tortured, and I could do nothing to help you! And what would they have done, had Nile not saved our skin?”

Nicky swallows, unsurprised by the heat of tears welling in his eyes. He is even less surprised to hear that Joe has been having the same thoughts as he has.

Joe’s eyes are shining, too, as he continues, “Nothing close to that has ever happened to us before, _nothing!_ And to face it….at the hands of Booker...to face down an eternity without you, a life of solitude and memories more painful than any knife...my God, Nicolò, I can’t--I cannot--”

Nicky grabs him, then, taking his dear face in his hands, vibrating with an unfamiliar energy. His heart catches on the barbed wire of his anguish, soft, exposed tissue tearing open to bleed. “You will never lose me, Yusuf.”

 _”Never.”_

Joe’s mouth is tempestuous, unforgiving and all-consuming. Nicky’s fingers find their way into Joe’s hair, and it feels like something new, and something familiar. It feels like their first kiss, the first time they were together this way, dire and hot and powerful. 

“I need you,” gasps Nicky into Joe’s mouth as his beloved yanks off his jacket. “I need you now.”

Joe’s hands cup Nicky’s ass in his shorts before giving him a hard squeeze. “Nothing could stop me from taking you, hayati.”

Nicky groans at that, harder than he’s ever been in his life. He tips his head back to succumb to the lips and teeth scorching their way across his neck. When Joe rubs him through his shorts, Nicky balls Joe’s plaid button down in his fists and tears it open, scattering buttons across the floor. Joe breathes a chuckle against Nicky’s jaw at that, but in the next moment, Joe’s swiping an arm over the surface of his work table, sending a cabinet door, sandpaper, and assorted screws and nails to the floor with a cringe-inducing clatter. Nicky couldn’t possibly care less, allowing himself to be stripped of his shorts and underwear before Joe heaves him up onto the counter, resting warm hands on his splayed thighs before plunging his tongue between his lips. 

Nicky shoves Joe’s button-down from his shoulders before yanking his undershirt overhead, breaths growing labored as he feels himself throb. 

“Fuck me now,” he whispers harshly, spreading his legs wide as Joe wriggles his trousers down around his ankles. “I need you, Joe.”

Joe lets out a growl, lip curling as he pulls a drawer out so rapidly it nearly flies off the hinges. He rummages for a moment before producing a half-empty bottle of lube. 

Nicky snickers, surprised, slightly easing the tension between them. “How long has that been in there?”

“Oh.” Joe huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “I think this is a question best left unanswered, ya habibi.”

“You can’t remember, can you.”

“You’re awfully mouthy for someone who’s about to get fucked within an inch of his life.”

Joe’s words reignite the urgency between them, arousal throbbing hot and lovely between Nicky’s legs as his beloved nuzzles their noses together before taking his mouth in another toe-curling kiss. Nicky wraps his arms around Joe’s shoulders, heart exploding as his hand dips between his thighs to rub against his hole. Fuck, Nicky’s never felt more ready in his life, rocking his hips to urge Joe’s finger inside, then deeper as his aching cock grows wet at the tip. 

“You feel beautiful,” he whispers against Joe’s lips. “I missed this so much...I missed you so much. Having you like this.”

“And I have missed you, ya Nicolò, tight and eager for me,” groans Joe as he slips a second finger in alongside the first. Nicky hooks a foot around Joe’s low back, moaning shamelessly as his willing body opens to accept the love he’d been craving, desperate to be surrounded by nothing but Joe.

“Madre di dio,” he gasps when Joe nudges against his prostate. Joe repeats the motion, mouthing hungrily at Nicky’s jaw. “Fuck me now, please, Yusuf, please.”

“You are divine,” murmurs Joe, gently extricating his fingers. He pulls Nicky’s hips close to the edge, staring right into his eyes as he slicks himself, the filthy squelch of his hand on his cock filling the room and flooding Nicky’s mouth with saliva. 

Joe doesn’t break their eye contact as he pushes in, and God, it feels like the first time, so overwhelming that tears spring to Nicky’s eyes. “God,” he whispers. “Yusuf, I love you, my God.”

“I love you.” Joe kisses his neck, nibbles his shoulder, fingers possessive on his low back as he grinds his hips, fucking Nicky slow and deep. “I love you, Nicolò. I love you more than life.”

“Ti amo,” gasps Nicky, pulling Joe closer, until their chests press together, wrapping his legs around his waist so Joe can barely pull out. “Ti amo, Yusuf, Yusuf.”

“My dearest love.” 

Joe’s barely moving, body tight like a bow string as he clutches at Nicky like he’s just as overwhelmed as he is. “Baciami,” murmurs Nicky, and Joe does, immediately plunging his tongue into his mouth as they rock together.

After a time, Nicky pulls their chests apart. He meets Joe’s gaze as he gives his hips a long, luscious roll. Joe’s eyes roll back in his head, and Nicky repeats the movement. It’s so much, this closeness, almost too much, yet somehow not enough.

“Joe,” he groans. “Let’s switch. Do me from behind.”

Joe lets out a strangled noise of agreement before pulling out, chest glistening with sweat, prick hard and shiny with lube and desire. He takes a moment to breathe, centering himself, as Nicky hops down and turns his back to Joe. He sticks out his rear at an appealing angle as he drapes his torso over the counter, uncaring of the sawdust that scratches against his skin. Joe steps close, running reverent hands over his ass before nudging his legs further apart and pushing back inside. 

Nicky feels the change in angle and depth immediately, fingers tensing on the table as he arches his back. 

Joe leans over him, planting little kisses on his shoulder as he lets Nicky get used to the new position. “Good?”

“So good,” murmurs Nicky, biting his lip as Joe sinks even deeper inside of him, stretching his body perfectly. “It’s--you’re--it’s perfect.”

Joe curses, then drapes his body over Nicky’s, hugging their bodies as tightly together as possible. It’s wonderful, intense, everything Nicky wants, everything Joe wants. It’s perfect, and Nicky can’t stop the moans the fall from his lips at the sensation of Joe panting against his neck, the sweat dripping between them, the grounding, erotically possessive press of Joe's hand on his throat.

“I’m sorry,” sighs Joe into the haze of their ecstasy, right against Nicky’s ear. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

Nicky whimpers, fingers scrabbling against the table as Joe picks up the pace of his hips. “I love you more than life,” says Joe once more, nuzzling his head against Nicky’s bicep. “You are the only thing that matters in this world, ya Nicolò, God, you are everything. Everything.”

Nicky groans, toes curling at Joe’s gorgeous words, the exquisite angle of his hips. “Yes,” is all he can manage, turning his head as far as it will go to look back at Joe. “Everything, beloved, habibi, amore--”

Joe meets his gaze, eyes shining with adoration and apologies as he leans forward to plant a sloppy kiss on Nicky’s lips. He plunges deeper, pulling almost all the way out before driving back in, every thrust unraveling Nicky further, stoking the fire in his belly and forcing wetness to drip from his prick onto the floor. Fuck, Nicky could weep from it, the gorgeous arousal in his gut, the fullness of Joe inside of him, the beauty of finally being as close to him as he’s wanted--

“Oh, hayati,” whispers Joe hoarsely, fingers sliding up Nicky’s throat to grab his jaw. “Let go, love of my life.”

So Nicky closes his eyes, mouth falling open in a series of constant, shameless moans, face hot with lust and tears, arching his back, pushing against Joe’s every thrust. They move together frantically until Joe reaches between his legs and Nicky seizes up and comes at the first touch with a long cry, body shuddering beneath Joe’s, squeezing around his beloved as he fucks him through it. 

“Yusuf,” he gasps in his pleasure. “Come, my love, come inside me.”

Joe whimpers against Nicky’s sweat-damp flesh, plunging in hard and deep four more times before stilling and releasing hot and thick in Nicky’s pliant body. 

They lie there for a long moment, Joe collapsed on top of Nicky, breathing ragged and vocal as they bask in the stupor of their lovemaking. 

Joe’s hot, sweaty hand finds Nicky’s first. He intertwines their fingers and squeezes. Nicky squeezes back, enjoying the sensation of his beloved softening within him, the feeling of his weight against him, the notion that a million pounds have been lifted from his shoulders. 

“They’re in the cellar, you know,” croaks Joe, breaking the silence. 

“What?”

“The silverware. I took them out of the case, meaning to polish them, and left them out in the cellar.”

A surprised laugh bubbles up and out of Nicky, and once it’s out, he can’t help the giggles that follow. Joe chuckles, too, and the sensation runs through Nicky, which only makes the both of them laugh harder, then Joe slides gently from Nicky’s body and gently tilts his face to kiss the giggles from his lips. 

“Of course, you couldn’t have just said this earlier,” says Nicky in an attempt to grouse. 

Joe raises a mischievous eyebrow. “If I had, would we have just done that?” 

“Good point.” 

Joe lays a hand on Nicky’s forearm, sobering slightly. “I was so upset, and you were so upset, so I didn’t even...I didn’t even think to say. I’m sorry.”

“It is alright.” Nicky kisses the back of his knuckles. “I’m sorry I jumped down your throat. Jumped to conclusions, really. It wasn’t right.”

“It’s alright.” Joe eases off of Nicky and helps him to his feet before pulling him into a messy, wonderful hug. “Why don’t we go inside and get cleaned up, then we can drive into town and get some food. Maybe we bring it back here, sit out on the beach. Whatever you want. And we can talk. I promise.”

“That works for me.” Nicky smiles into Joe’s neck. 

Joe chuckles and shakes his head, surveying the mess they’d made of his workshop. “I...suppose I ought to clean this up.” He kicks what Nicky can only assume to be the discarded cabinet door. “And I’ll have to sand that even more.”

“Yes, but later.” Nicky takes Joe’s hand in his and presses several sloppy kisses to his fingers. Joe’s nose crinkles up at the saliva his lips leave in their wake, and the remaining mass of tension in Nicky’s low gut that had governed his every move finally unspools. “Bath?”

They don’t bother picking up their clothes, or righting anything in the workshop before meandering inside. Joe pauses in the doorway to the living room, eyebrows shooting skywards at the chaos.

“What...what happened in here?”

“Oh. That.” Nicky grimaces. “I...I tried to clean up.”

Joe looks at him, bemused, slightly awe-struck, and shakes his head. “Hayati...I hate to be the one to tell you this, but this is not how we clean.”

“Thank you, Joe, I will keep that in mind for next time,” says Nicky, rolling his eyes.

The bathtub is still full of tools and drywall, so they settle for a shower instead. Nicky presses his chest to Joe’s back, and they stand there for a long time, feeling the warm spray against their flesh. The gentle rise and fall of Joe’s chest syncs quickly with Nicky’s, and Nicky presses his face into Joe’s neck with a shaky exhale. 

“I know I’ve been impossible.” Joe’s hands find Nicky’s around his waist. “I’m sorry I let it get this far, and that...I’m sorry for not wanting to talk about it.”

“I am sorry that I did not find a better way to connect with you, to understand what you were going through.” Nicky turns his beloved in his arms, admiring the waterlogged curls plastered against his forehead. “I am...I suppose I am not used to you shutting down like that. Not wanting to talk. We have shared everything, and this…”

“This was something we suffered together.” Joe presses their foreheads together. “You have been hurting, and you have needed to talk. With me. And I...it’s...well, it’s just…”

Nicky runs his hands up and down strong biceps. A line forms between Joe’s eyebrows as he looks up, takes Nicky’s face in his hands. “When I close my eyes, I don’t just see the inside of Merrick’s lab. I don’t just see the armored van, the guards, the guns, the needles, the scalpels. I don’t just see Booker, watching us walk away on the beach, or Andy, bleeding on the floor in Istanbul, Nile’s panic.”

He swallows. “I don’t even just see you in that hospital bed. Or the grotesque assortment of vials and jars containing our blood, our bones, our tissue. I see….I see…”

He inhales deeply, and in his breath Nicky hears everything Joe’s been avoiding saying, he feels every ounce of conflict and pain, fear, denial. He tugs Joe close, pressing every inch of the front of their bodies together. Not a moment too soon, for Joe lets out a small sob and buries his face in Nicky’s neck. 

“I see Quynh,” he cries, voice cracking. “I see Quynh at the bottom of the sea. I see you lost, a shadow in your place. I see--I see a half-life, a life devoid of joy, of pleasure, a life without family. A life without you. A life that is not worth living.” 

Nicky aches deep in his chest as he tightens his arms around his beloved.

“I don’t know how to...I don’t know how to _be_ without you,” Joe continues tearfully, hands connecting at Nicky’s low back. “And don’t want to know. So to come so close...and to watch Andy...she’s no longer...it could have been you. It could have been you.”

The dam breaks then, a convulsion wracking Joe’s body before he begins to weep in Nicky’s arms. His sobs are soft at first, reserved, but Nicky soothes a hand over his back, over and over, until he’s coaxed out the great blubbering sobs that Joe has been holding in for months. The sound and sensation of his Joe shaking and weeping in his arms strikes Nicky’s heart at its softest and most vulnerable spots, and he lets Joe’s pain wash over him until they are both crying, until the seemingly endless void between them is filled with their sorrow, their worry, their tears, their love.

They clutch at one another until the tears stop, the slowing of their breath ushering in a different energy between them, a new beginning. There is more to be said, so much more to be done...later.

For now, they stay wrapped in one another’s embrace as the water grows cold. Nicky doesn’t mind, doesn’t even notice, just sighs in contentment at the sensation of Joe’s heart beating against his.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed this, please feel free to drop a comment, I love to hear from you. You can also come holler at me about the immortal husbands (and about 6000 other things) over on [tumblr dot com](http://whoreschach.tumblr.com/), if you're into that kind of thing.


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